Oil, the Chavistas, and
the Venezuelan elections of 2015

The Venezuelan
legislative elections of December 6 resulted in a devastating defeat
for the "United Socialist Party" of the late Hugo Chavez. The
opposition has ended up with a two-thirds majority in the legislature.
This is a huge setback to the Bolivarian movement created by Hugo
Chavez and continued by present Nicolas Maduro.

The fall in support for the Chavistas is the result of an economic
crisis in Venezuela caused in part by the collapse of oil prices. This
drop has resulted in economic difficulties for many oil producing
countries: not just Venezuela, but Iraq, Russia, Iran, oil emirates
like Qatar, and others. Even the US economy is feeling some effects
from it. But these are not socialist countries, while the Bolivarian
movement of the late Hugo Chavez and of the present Venezuelan
president Nicolas Maduro boasted that it was implementing, not just
socialism, but "21st century socialism". Indeed, Chavez and Maduro
brought some important social programs to the people, but they didn't
know how to maintain these programs or transform the Venezuelan
economy. This was not socialism, but a reformed capitalism, and it was
only going to go so far.

Since 1999, the Chavista government used the revenues from the sale
of Venezuelan oil to finance reforms that improved the life of poor
majority of Venezuelans. Education and health care was dramatically
extended; malnutrition declined radically; many more people had
pensions; and the percentage of people living in poverty declined
sharply.

This was financed mainly with oil revenues. During much of the
Bolivarian period, oil prices on the world market soared, becoming
several times higher than the historic lows at the time that Chavez
assumed the Venezuelan presidency in 1999. It is entirely just that the
Venezuelan working people should get some benefit from the oil, rather
than all the profits flowing to the Venezuelan bourgeoisie. But
socialism isn't just a matter of redistributing oil revenues. It refers
to the working people taking over and directing production as well as
deciding the path for the country, whereas the Chavistas have presided
over a mixed capitalist economy, albeit one with much better social
programs than previous Venezuelan governments. Aside from cooperatives
and the state-owned oil company, most production remains directed by
the bourgeoisie. And although the Chavez and then Maduro governments
relied on mass support from the poor for their many electoral
victories, they ruled through accommodation with the military and a
section of the bourgeoisie. It's not the working people and the series
of new cooperatives and microbusinesses that settled economic policy in
Venezuela, but the deals between the Chavista leadership, the military,
and a section of the Venezuelan bourgeoisie. These deals were greased
by oil money.

So this system depended on continued high prices for oil. The
present price is low, although higher then when Chavez became
president. With oil prices way below the heights where they were for a
time during Chavez's presidency, the economy has gone into deep crisis.
Inflation this year is far over 100%. There are deep shortages of basic
goods, from medical supplies to eggs to toilet paper. People wait hours
in line for small amounts of goods with subsidized prices. The system
of artificial exchange rates for the bolivar has turned into a
nightmare, with the official and actual value of the Venezuelan bolivar
differing by 100 times. And the Chavista movement had no serious plan
about what to do in this situation.

The Venezuelan economy had long been built around oil, and this
couldn't be changed overnight. But change is necessary; "21st century
socialism" can't be petro-socialism, when oil and other fossil fuels
threaten to destroy the 21st century, at least as far as human welfare
is concerned. Yet underneath the loud words of Chavez and Maduro about
global warming, they have championed a vast 25-year "Oil Sowing
Project", which would be the axis not only for Venezuelan development,
but for regional cooperation. This is justified with the hope of
prosperity for the peoples of Latin America, but oil capitalism has its
own logic.

Indeed, even aside from the environmental devastation from oil, the
tremendous profitability of oil production has been a mixed blessing
for capitalist countries. In Venezuela, the high oil revenues covered
over many problems which the Bolivarian movement ignored. Something
similar has happened in other countries. In the worst cases in the
middle East, the huge oil revenues of countries such as Iraq, Iran,
Saudi Arabia, Libya, and Syria provided the basis for long-standing
dictatorships and for their territorial ambitions. It's also been noted
that oil and gas windfalls can sometimes stunt an economy. One might
think that this wealth would provide funds for diversifying the rest of
the economy and economic growth, but instead there is the experience of
"Dutch disease"; Wikipedia says "The term was coined in 1977 by 'The
Economist' to describe the decline of the manufacturing sector in the
Netherlands after the discovery of the large Groningen natural gas
field in 1959." In Venezuela, the windfall from the period of high oil
prices provided social programs, but also seems to have fostered
corruption and distortions in the economy. The masses benefited greatly
from the increased social programs, but these programs are now in
jeopardy, and would be even if the Maduro government had won the
election.

The collapse of oil prices would have been a major shock for any
Venezuelan government. But one might have expected that an actually
socialist government, in power for over a decade and a half, would have
been moving away from reliance on higher and higher prices for oil. One
might have expected that the Bolivarian movement would have openly
discussed the economic situation with the masses and recognized the
need for improving its policies, instead of insisting that all the
problems were simply the result of the fierce political struggle in
Venezuela and the hostility of the American government. But the
Chavistas have had a high-handed attitude to the masses from the start,
priding themselves on bringing some benefits but keeping the major
decisions away from them.

A difficult period is in store for Venezuela. The masses will have
to fight hard to retain the social benefits they enjoyed for a time,
but this will not simply be a fight to maintain the old Chavista
system. At least, if the struggle is to be successful, it better not
simply look towards maintaining the old system. The economic crisis is
a crisis of the Chavista economic system, which was going to change
even if Maduro had won the election: the money was running out. Much
will depend on whether a movement gradually emerges that more truly
represents the masses than the Bolivarian movement has, and which has a
better idea of how to transform the Venezuelan economy. The working
class will and should support reforms of all types, but it needs to put
forward its own independent stand in the midst of this struggle.